Spiritual awakening dark night of the soul

7 Omens That Herald the Dark Night of the Soul ⋆ LonerWolf

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest Souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

– Khalil Gibran

At some point, most of us go through a phenomenon known as the Dark Night of the Soul.

Although we try to run from it, it is still there. Although we try to cover it up and smother it, it is still there. Although we try to put on a happy, smiley face and pretend it away, it’s still there.

While some of us seek reprieve in religious thought, others of us seek respite in spiritual philosophy or psychology, and still, others seek relief through addiction and mind-numbing external pursuits.

The truth is that although we are all born with Souls, not all of us know how to fully embody and integrate them into our human experience. The truth is that in our modern world, we live ego-centrically rather than Soul-centrically.

Mystics, saints, and shamans throughout history have all referred to this ego-centric human struggle in different ways. But the one thing they all had in common was their tendency to point to the need for us to consciously grow into our Divine potential.

One of these people was Saint John of the Cross, a Spanish monk who coined the term “Dark Night of the Soul” (“Noche Oscura” the name of one of his poems) based on his own mystical experience.

These days, the concept of the Dark Night of the Soul has come to be used in a much broader way. What was once a term reserved for people actively going through a Spiritual Journey, has now come to easily label anything ranging from a few bad days and a period of depression to the death of a loved one.

But what really is the Dark Night of the Soul?

Table of contents

• What is the Dark Night of the Soul?
• Dark Night and Depression – Is it the Same Thing?
• 7 Omens That Herald the Dark Night of the Soul
• Why Suffering is Necessary
• What is the Point of Living?
• Happiness Isn’t This or That, Happiness IS
• The Dark Night and The Spiritual Awakening Process
• Dark Night of the Soul Meditation

First, we’ll start with a basic definition:

What is the Dark Night of the Soul?

The Dark Night of the Soul is a period of utter spiritual desolation, disconnection, and emptiness in which one feels totally separated from the Divine. Those who experience the Dark Night feel completely lost, hopeless, and consumed with melancholy. The Dark Night of the Soul can be likened to severe spiritual depression (it’s a type of spiritual emergency.)

The concept of having a Dark Night of the Soul has existed for a long time, and spans back to the 16th century when poet and Catholic mystic Saint John of the Cross wrote a poem entitled, “La noche oscura del alma (The Dark Night of the Soul).”

Wrote Saint John:

If a man wishes to be sure of the road he’s traveling on, then he must close his eyes and travel in the dark.

Traditionally, the Dark Night of the Soul refers to the experience of losing touch with God/Creator and being plunged into the abyss of godless emptiness. The modern understanding of having a Dark Night of the Soul, however, is not exclusively a religious one, but can often mean losing all meaning in life, feeling out-of-touch with the Divine, feeling betrayed or forsaken by Life, and having no solid or stable ground to stand on.

Some of the heaviest questions we ask during this period include for example, “Why am I alive?” “Why do good people suffer?” “What is truth?” “Is there a god or afterlife?” and “What is the point of living?”

Dark Night and Depression – Is it the Same Thing?

The Dark Night of the Soul is not the same as depression.

Although depression shares many of its characteristics with the experience of having a Dark Night of the Soul, it can often be treated and sometimes cured with medications, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness practices, lifestyle changes, and so forth.

Furthermore, depression often has its roots in biological chemical imbalances and/or unhealthy thought patterns, and often comes as a result of personal loss, mental illness, physical illness, abuse, genetics, and so on.

However, while the Dark Night of the Soul isn’t the same as regular depression, it can be thought of as

spiritual depression.

One of the biggest differences between the Dark Night of the Soul’s depression and regular depression is that the Dark Night is primarily a spiritual and existential form of crises that can’t be treated or cured with therapy or psychiatry. Therefore, those of us going through the Dark Night can often feel an increasing sense of hopelessness, unease, and despair as we discover that no one can save us but ourselves. Inevitably, this makes us feel even more alone, frustrated, and confused about the world and about ourselves.

I am intensely aware of what it is like to experience complete psychological and spiritual desolation and although the feeling seems endless, there is a light at the end of the tunnel if you just know where to look.

7 Omens That Herald the Dark Night of the Soul

I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses. 

– Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“What’s the difference between the dark night and depression?” you may still wonder.

Even back in the 16th century, Saint John of the Cross himself was at great pains to distinguish the Dark Night from mere melancholia (depression).

After all, the symptoms of the Dark Night of the Soul are not that different from depression. But while depression is psychological/neurological/biological, the Dark Night heralds deep-seated changes occurring within us known as spiritual transformation.

Here are 7 “omens” that you might be going through a Dark Night of the Soul:

1. You feel a deep sense of sadness, which often verges on despair (this sadness is often triggered by the state of your life, humanity, and/or the world as a whole)
2. You feel an acute sense of unworthiness
3. You have the constant feeling of being lost or “condemned” to a life of suffering or emptiness
4. You possess a painful feeling of powerlessness and hopelessness
5. Your will and self-control is weakened, making it difficult for you to act
6. You lack interest and find no joy in things that once excited you
7. You crave for the loss of something intangible; a longing for a distant place or to “return home” again

(You can also take our free Dark Night of the Soul test to help you discover whether you’re going through this experience or not. )

The ultimate difference between regular depression and the Dark Night of the Soul’s depression is that regular depression is usually self-centric, whereas the Dark Night’s depression is philosophical in nature and is accompanied by existential reflections such as “Why am I here?” and “What is my purpose?”

Also, when depression ends, not much changes in your life in terms of your beliefs, values, and habits. However, when the Dark Night of the Soul ends, everything in your life is transformed, and life becomes wondrous again.

Why Suffering is Necessary

My desire to live is as intense as ever, and though my heart is broken, hearts are made to be broken: that is why God sends sorrow into the world … To me, suffering seems now a sacramental thing, that makes those whom it touches holy … any materialism in life coarsens the soul.

– Oscar Wilde “Letters“

Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dąbrowski once coined a term Positive disintegration which views tension and anxiety as necessary in the process of spiritual and psychological maturing. In other words, it is the friction within us that causes the mirror of our Souls to be polished enough for us to glimpse our True Nature.

I often hear people speak of the Dark Night as some kind problem they have to “fix,” or something they “went through a long time ago, that is now over, thank God.” But what these people thought was a Dark Night may have just been a glimpse of the darkness within them, especially when they speak egotistically about it as if it were a badge of honor.

A true Dark Night of the Soul leaves a long-lasting impact on you – it changes you completely. When you exit a Dark Night, you will discover that something is always taken away from you (for the better), such as your beliefs, your perceptions, your former meaning in life, or even in rare cases, your ego.

The metaphysician Ananda Coomaraswamy put it this way:

No creature can attain a higher grade of nature without ceasing to exist.

Have you ever seen a butterfly begin to emerge from its cocoon? It must struggle in order to strengthen its wings. If someone frees the butterfly from its cocoon prematurely, it won’t be able to fly because its crucial tempering stage will not have occurred.

The same is true for trees. Trees need wind in order to build their structural strength to stay upright.

Your Dark Night of the Soul is your wind, your cocoon; it is an ego death whereby you shed the ego that prevents you from embodying your Soul.

If you try to avoid the hard work of, as Ananda put it, “ceasing to exist,” or breaking down your old confining structures, you won’t have what it takes to truly embody your essential nature.

What is the Point of Living?

Here’s another central question and concern that emerges over and over again during our Dark Night of the Soul.

What is the point of living?

Such a question weighs down on us like lead, oppressing us constantly.

Each day we might obsessively search for an answer, but find to our greatest dismay that the answers to such a question are as expansive as the waves on the ocean.

Some people tell us, “the point is to serve God,” others tell us, “the point is to make a difference,” and others tell us, “there is no point: you make your own meaning.” These are only three of hundreds, even thousands of possible answers.

What the hell are we supposed to do?

Who is right, who is wrong … if there really is any “right” or “wrong” answer? We walk down one path and immediately become dissatisfied, disillusioned, and repelled by what we discover. Then we walk down another path and history repeats itself again and again until we realize with horror, “Every path is meaningless to me,” and we collapse in grief and despair, winding up at square one again.

Such a cycle repeats itself over and over again during the Dark Night of the Soul, so much so that it can become like torment. I know because I have experienced it. The strange thing is that although we get to a point of complete desolation, we still hold a glimmer of hope that pursuing the same path over and over and over again will somehow bring us to a deeply satisfying meaning one day. We seem to think that the mind is the solution to our problems; that utilizing the mind will release us from the original prison created by the mind that feels the need to quantify, measure, and define everything.

What most of us fail to do, however, is to question the actual questions we are asking and pursuing the answers to. Have you ever tried asking:

Why must there be a point to living? Instead of, What is the point of living?

I’ll elaborate on this below.

Happiness Isn’t This or That,

Happiness IS

Earlier today I opened my email and received a poignant message from one of our long-time readers asking:

I don’t understand. Why am I alive? Why do I experience life? I don’t know why I am here now. I don’t see the point of living my life. I don’t want anything, not material /physical achievements, not relationships, not entertainment, nothing. I don’t know what to do with this body, mind, and feelings. Or maybe I just experience this life too intensely until I am numbed. But why?

My answer to anyone experiencing this is that although you might feel cursed, you are actually blessed. It sounds absurd, even insulting, but this is the truth.

Before any true growth or healing can occur, there must be a process of destruction and complete annihilation of everything you thought would bring you happiness.

Most people experiencing Dark Nights realize this: that nothing makes them happy anymore; not bodily, not sexual, not emotional, not material, not political, not social, not even spiritual. And this is the start of the purification process.

Conditioning vs. reality …

Since birth you have been conditioned to believe that money will make you happy, a sexy/rich partner will make you happy, a high IQ will make you happy, a big house will make you happy, a thriving career will make you happy, a perfect life will make you happy.

But this is all a lie because whenever you pursue happiness, you are immediately losing touch with the fact that happiness is already here, right now, in this very second, without you having to do anything or question anything. Happiness IS.

This sounds like the most ridiculous thing you might have ever heard, and yet deep down you might sense the truth in it. If this is the case the first layer of your illusion has been peeled away; what a blessing!

A blessing in disguise …

In reality, it is absolutely terrifying to have the ground beneath your feet ripped out from beneath you, and this is precisely what we experience during the Dark Night of the Soul.

And yet, this experience is the greatest teacher of all to us because it illuminates what is fragile, transient, and subject to change, growth, and decay. We are subsequently left with a feeling of great inner emptiness, but within this emptiness, we eventually come to see what can never come, go, change or die, and that is the truth of who we are: pure, peaceful, and blissful conscious essence.

The mind is always frantically searching …

The mind is a product of our evolutionary development: it protects us and structures our existence, and through it, we can experience the beauty of life. But in order to truly come to any closure during our Dark Nights we must understand that the mind is limited, narrow and finite – and therefore so is our reasoning.

Why must there be a “point” to living other than the experience of being alive in all of its fascinating and shocking diversity? Why must we “pursue” or “find” something rather than simply experiencing each moment fully and completely in the simplicity of Being?

That is why I say that happiness isn’t this or that, happiness IS. What exactly are we seeking when we want to answer the question, “What is the point of living”? We want a satisfactory answer that will appeal to the mind and “GIVE” us happiness.

But happiness can’t be given because happiness IS. This might all sound like fancy rhetoric, but I recommend that you let it sink in and really look into it more. For me it took years, but these six questions helped to solidify the understanding that happiness and fulfillment are already here, now. Please read them to continue your journey.

The Dark Night and The Spiritual Awakening Process

As humans, the prospect of change is avoided and resisted because it is unknown territory. Therefore, we fear it. For this reason, we require a Spiritual Awakening.

There are three ways that Spiritual Awakenings can occur:

the first is at the hands of wise spiritual teachers, the second is through the spiritual drive of soulfully mature people, and the third is spontaneously due to life experience.

Spontaneous awakenings arrive in a number of ways: a terminal diagnosis, old age, a near-death experience, a physical accident, the loss of a loved one, a romantic breakup, the destruction of your home or homeland, suicidal depression, or the complete loss of your religious faith.

The Dark Night is a herald, an omen, of change. It lets us know that we can’t continue living the way we have been living. There is no growth, no awakening in life, to life, without first seeing and acknowledging our existing disappointment.

Acknowledging our disappointment means becoming aware of the deeply held sense of “incompletion” that we all carry; it means becoming aware that something is desperately missing from our lives. Those that have experienced, or are currently experiencing a Dark Night of the Soul will know that something very fundamental at a core level is out of focus or completely lacking in their lives. Those going through a Dark Night will sense that so much more is possible in their lives, even though they don’t exactly know what that “so much more” is.

Paradise lost and found …

One of the common reasons why Dark Nights occur and are prolonged is due to mystical experiences, or short glimpses of the divine, which spiritual teachers often refer to as “grace” or samādhi. Soon afterward, the person “loses” this experience, and is plunged into unhappiness again. This is called the “halo effect,” “afterglow” or what the Sufis speak of as the “sobriety of union.”

Why does the “halo effect” happen? It happens because of the stark contrast between one’s rediscovered Divine Self and the return to one’s disconnected and tormented Ego self. To the spiritually mature person, the halo effect sets the stage for a future encounter with the transcendental, with God.

However, for the less prepared seeker, the glimpse into the Divine stirs up even more distress as old habits, obsessions, thoughts, and behaviors reappear. Now, such a person realizes that he has a long, complex, and demanding task of purification and transformation ahead of him.

In Spiritual Alchemy, there is a word for this experience called solutio; putting all the hard stuff in the waters of reflection (your ideas, your habits, etc.), where it dissolves and breaks apart, shows itself for what it is, and gives you the opportunity for a fresh start.

Find freedom through purging …

The solution to one’s suffering and disconnection from the divine realm can be any method of cutting away, dislodging, disintegrating and clearing old pieces of your life so that you can begin afresh.

Essentially, the Dark night is a process of shedding away your old home and going in search of a new one. Understandably, this process requires a huge leap of faith into the unknown which can come at quite a sudden and frightening pace.

If you think you might be going through this journey, it’s important to understand that many of us have been where you are. Many people still are. There is no map, there is only the flickering luminescence of your Soul to light the way.

I hope our work can encourage, embolden and support you if you are undertaking this descent into your Underworld.

---

More In-Depth Help

Want to learn more about the Dark Night of the Soul? In our book The Spiritual Awakening Process, we give more in-depth guidance:

get more guidance

---

Dark Night of the Soul Meditation

While every experience of the Dark Night of the Soul is different, the one common thread is that it is a path of initiation. You are in the dark so that you can understand what Light is. You are disconnected so that you can know what connection is. You are lost so that you can find your way back Home. If these explanations of the Dark Night don’t resonate with you, please go ahead and discard of them. I’m not here to tell you what the Dark Night of the Soul should mean because ultimately you must figure that out for yourself. You need to be the one to make meaning out of your experience. I can only offer my own understanding.

If you have read up until this point you are probably looking for additional help, and that is completely understandable. However, the Dark Night of the Soul is a complex and profound experience and it cannot be solved by reading a “six-step” formula or bullet list. What I can offer you, however, is a simple meditation which may provide you with some level of relief.

When you can dredge up enough energy (I know how exhausting and depleting the Dark Night can be), try experimenting with the following Dark Night of the Soul meditation:

Find a quiet and undisturbed place. If you like, play some celestial or ethereal music in the background to set the mood. Lie down and close your eyes. For a minute or two focus on your breath. Feel your chest rise and fall. Once you feel connected with your body, shift your focus to creating an image of yourself walking through a dark forest. Imagine that you are looking above to see the dark tangled branches of the forest obscure the sky. What does the forest feel like? Is it cold, hot, balmy, humid or icy? Can you smell, feel or taste anything?

As you keep walking through the dark forest, the path in front of you seems endless. The atmosphere feels deathly and melancholic. Suddenly, a white wolf emerges from the trees. It looks at you with intelligent and kind eyes and begins to accompany you as you walk. Your feeling of loneliness lifts slightly as you enjoy the company of your animal friend. Suddenly, the wolf beside you stops and stares intensely into the dark trees ahead of you. You peer ahead but cannot see anything but dark shadows. Suddenly, your wolf companion lifts up his head and lets out a loud and haunting wolf call.

The hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Just after the wolf stops howling, a white light slowly emerges from deep within the forest. At first, the light is tiny and like a pinprick. But as you walk towards it, the light becomes bigger and brighter. A feeling of hope begins to fill you. Tentatively, you start jogging towards the light. You notice that the faster you run, the bigger the light gets. The closer you move to the light, the more open and expansive you feel. You pick up your pace. The feeling is exhilarating! Far behind you, the white wolf howls again. A feeling of wildness and freedom starts to warm you from the inside out. As you continue running, the light begins to consume your vision. The dark forest begins to quickly fade. As you look down, you notice that your legs are the legs of a wolf – without knowing it, you have experienced a total transformation – and it is liberating! Picking up your pace, you keep running and you let out a loud howl. The piercing sound of the howl dissolves all hopelessness, sadness, and darkness left within you. The howl has completely purified you. All that remains is pure light, love, hope, power, and peace. You feel spacious and open. You are free!

Enjoy the feeling of freedom for as long as you wish. When you are ready, wiggle your fingers and toes and return back to the room. You may like to journal about your experience.

Feel free to record this visualization, get someone to read it out to you gently, or change the meditation to your own liking. It has been created to ultimately benefit you. 

***

To end this article, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Dark Night of the Soul quotes by David Whyte – a man who understood the value of making peace with the darkness:

…Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.
The world was made to be free in

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive

is too small for you.

– “Sweet Darkness” by David Whyte

Now, over to you:

What has your experience been like with the Dark Night of the Soul? Please share below to help others not feel so alone.

P.S. If you’re experiencing the Dark Night and desperately need more guidance, see our Dark Night of the Soul Journal for extra help.

15 Signs You’re Experiencing a Spiritual Emergency ⋆ LonerWolf

You’ve gone through a tremendous spiritual awakening. Your life perspective has changed drastically. You’re no longer the same person you once were a few years ago.

But something has gone horribly wrong.

While others on the spiritual path are reveling in their deep insights, you feel suffocated under the weight of an existential crisis. 

While others are busy reconnecting with their meaning of life, you can barely function in a job or even get out of bed to shower.

While others feel a deeper sense of peace and alignment, you feel like you’re on the verge of going crazy or being sucked into the black hole of depression forever.

What on earth has happened?

Is it something you did wrong? Is it because you’re not worthy? Is it because you’re not strong enough?

Answer: NO, not at all. What you are experiencing has nothing to do with your strengths or capabilities.

What you’re experiencing is something called a spiritual emergency. And as we’ll see throughout the rest of this article, it’s a normal process that many people experience during their spiritual paths, and it’s not your fault.

Table of contents

• What is a Spiritual Emergency?
• 15 Signs You’re Experiencing a Spiritual Emergency 
• Why Do Spiritual Emergencies Happen?
• Are You Experiencing a Spiritual Emergency or Mental Illness?
• Types of Spiritual Emergency 
• How to Cope With the Spiritual Emergency
• Helpful Organizations
• The Spiritual Emergency is a Sacred Process

What is a Spiritual Emergency?

The spiritual emergency is a severe crisis an individual may experience after going through a spiritual awakening. Essentially, a spiritual emergency occurs when the spiritual awakening process speeds up so much that it becomes terrifying and destabilizing to the body and mind. 

“Spiritual emergency” as a word was first coined Czech psychiatrists Stanislav and Christina Grof and was expanded in the 1989 book Spiritual Emergency: When Personal Transformation Becomes a Crisis. Since then it has increased in popularity, although is still relatively unheard of within mainstream spiritual communities. (I want to change that.)

Spiritual emergencies can happen to anyone at any point in life. Those who are not particularly ‘spiritual’ can experience it just as often as those who are actively engaged on the spiritual path. The common uniting factor is usually that a person undergoes a shock (in the form of illness, family death, major life change, etc.) that triggers the spiritual crisis.

The spiritual emergency can last anywhere from a few days to a number of years. The process is very much dependant on what kind of environment you live in and how supportive vs. unsupportive it is.

---

Get Your Spiritual Emergency Worksheets!

Explore your relationship with the spiritual emergency.

Download Free Worksheets!

---

Cosmic love is absolutely ruthless and highly indifferent; it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not.

– John Lilly

If you’re going through a spiritual emergency, you have my love and support. This is probably one of the most painful, disorienting, and scary experiences you will ever go through – but please know that it does end, and it is worth going through. (I’ll explore why later.)

Below, you’ll find fifteen signs commonly experienced during spiritual emergencies:

1. You find it impossible to cope with everyday tasks (like going shopping, showering, cooking, keeping up with the bills, etc.)
2. You can’t hold down a job due to your intense sensitivity 
3. It feels like your whole world is crumbling around you
4. You struggle to sleep properly and may experience night terrors
5. Your inner and outer world blur confusingly
6. You experience a rollercoaster of emotions
7. You may experience strange hallucinations (e.g., images, sounds, physical impressions)
8. Your grasp on the real and logical is weak (resulting in psychotic-like symptoms)
9. You may believe, at some point, that you’re the reincarnation of enlightened figures like Jesus, Buddha, Mary, etc. (this is called ego-inflation and is a result of Universal Consciousness overlapping with your own personal consciousness)
10. You may experience vivid past-life flashbacks
11. You feel strange sensations in your body (e.g., vibrations, shivers, heat, burning)
12. You’ve developed a medically unexplainable illness
13. You experience more synchronicity or meaningful coincidences
14. You feel like you’re being sucked into a different dimension or black hole
15. You feel like you’re going crazy

Of course, this list is not exhaustive. I’m sure there are many other symptoms out there I’ve forgotten to include, so please share below if you think I’ve missed any.

---

More In-Depth Help

Want to learn more about the spiritual emergency? In our book The Spiritual Awakening Process, we give more in-depth guidance:

get more guidance

---

Also, those who work in the mental health field may have a thing or two to say about the above list of symptoms. Yes, it’s true that many of the above symptoms overlap with ‘bipolar disorder,’ ‘manic-depression,’ ‘schizophrenia,’ etc. We’ll explore this important overlap a little later – and what it means for you.

Why Do Spiritual Emergencies Happen?

Honestly, there is no single known reason why spiritual emergencies happen. The cause, I suspect, is unique for everyone.

But here are some explanations:

1. It’s your destiny – by experiencing an accelerated spiritual awakening process, you are about to learn some profound lessons, work through a tremendous amount of karma, and transform into the most illuminated version of yourself possible in this lifetime.
2. Your conditioning was particularly strong – conditioning meaning the beliefs, ideas, habits, and patterns adopted from your parents and society. To break through these forms of conditioning and dissolve them (so you can experience a conscious ‘upgrade’), you had to undergo a particularly intense spiritual awakening.
3. You’re a gifted shaman, priestess, healer, or “walker between worlds” – part of your spiritual awakening process involves connecting you with the forces of the unconscious mind or “spirit realm” which you have not yet learned to navigate (hence why you’re experiencing a spiritual emergency).
4. You’re dealing with past karma – in some belief systems it’s believed that we deal with unresolved trauma from our past lives in this lifetime – and that may take the shape of a spiritual emergency to help you purge ancient patterns and develop a ‘clean slate.’
5. You’re more sensitive – we all have various levels of sensitivity, and those who undergo a spiritual emergency may be more sensitive and empathic than others. This may explain why the would-be spiritual awakening turns into a spiritual emergency; it’s simply too overwhelming for those already sensitive to life. Again, there is no way of proving this, but it is one theory that you might like to ruminate on.

So which theory are you more inclined to believe? Perhaps you’d like to combine a few of these explanations and discard the rest. 

Regardless of what you choose, it’s vital here to stress that it’s important to give your spiritual emergency a purpose. As Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” 

Are You Experiencing a Spiritual Emergency or Mental Illness?

Breakdowns precede breakthroughs.

– Lee Lozowick

You might be curious to know whether the spiritual emergency is actually just a fancy name for a psychotic break, manic-depressive episode, or other severe mental illness?

This is a tough question to answer as there’s no black or white “yes” or “no.”

Those who undergo spiritual emergencies are often committed to mental health wards – either forcibly or voluntarily. As author Catherine G. Lucas, founder of the UK Spiritual Crisis Network writes:

There are literally thousands of people who have been through the mental health system who have not had the spiritual aspect of their experience honoured. The spiritual dimension has been completely overshadowed by the interpretation given to their experience by the medical model.

These unfortunate individuals have been forcibly injected with high doses of medication, held against their will, shunned by their families, rejected by society, and labeled by the system as pathologically mentally ill.

Although it can be argued that the mental health system (which is a fundamentally flawed institution) is only doing what it knows best, a psychiatric unit isn’t the safest place for a person who is undergoing a spiritual emergency. 

Those who don’t end up committed usually buy into the pathologizing perspective of the mental health system – there simply aren’t many other alternatives. They may be diagnosed with a mental illness, instructed to take medication every day to keep their symptoms under check, and shooed away like a herd animal until their prescription expires – and the cycle continues.

While I’m not trying to imply that it’s a good idea to get off your medication if you suspect you’ve undergone a spiritual emergency, it is good to be educated and have more options. Sometimes a small amount of medication is necessary to help prevent complete system shutdown – and that is a blessing the medical world offers us. But it’s not the only solution.

Being ‘Diagnosed’ or Hospitalized During the Spiritual Emergency …

As Lucas writes in her book, the process of being tossed through the medical system can be severely traumatizing and actually prevent us from fulfilling the natural cycle of the spiritual emergency – and reaping its rewards:

Overall, perhaps the greatest danger of ending up in a hospital, and certainly the saddest aspect, is that the opportunity for healing and growth, for living a fuller, richer, more awakened life, can be irretrievably lost. The natural process of renewal, as the psychiatrist John Weir Perry called it, can be totally thwarted. Both the trauma of hospitalisation and the over-use of medication can have this effect. And once the process has been stopped in its tracks it can be difficult, if not impossible, to retrieve.

Furthermore, having our mystical experiences dismissed as being purely ‘psychotic,’ ‘borderline,’ or ‘schizophrenic’ not only denies the spiritual validity of what we’re going through but also adds an unnecessary element of fear and terror to the experience. This fear and terror can be profoundly crippling and can make the whole experience much more difficult than it really needs to be. 

Thankfully, there are some in the medical field (typically Jungian and transpersonal therapists who focus on spiritual psychology) who understand the spiritual significance of symptoms that would otherwise be dismissed as “ramblings of a crazy mind.” I encourage you to seek these sorts of professionals out and ask them if they are familiar with the spiritual emergency. You can also visit the spiritual emergence network if you need to find someone close to you.

Roger Walsh, an Australian professor of psychiatry, philosophy, and anthropology, is one such figure in the medical field who validates the spiritual emergency. He calls it the “developmental crisis”:

Developmental crises are periods of psychological stress that accompany turning points in our lives. They may be marked by considerable psychological turmoil, sometimes even of life-threatening proportions. These transitions can occur spontaneously, as in adolescent and midlife crises, or can be induced by growth accelerating techniques such as psychotherapy and meditation. These crises occur because psychological growth rarely proceeds smoothly. Rather, growth is usually marked by periods of confusion and questioning or, in extreme cases, disorganization and despair.

So is it a spiritual emergency or a psychosis?

We need to understand that sometimes experiences can be both/and not either/or. In this situation, you may be experiencing both a spiritual emergency and some form of psychosis – but they shouldn’t be seen as two distinct things. 

As Lucas writes, “… I am not interested in trying to distinguish between so-called psychosis and spiritual emergency. I take the view that it is all the psyche’s attempt to heal and move towards wholeness, that each experience is potentially spiritually transformative.”

What you’re going through is valid and you need to seek out those who help you see your spiritual emergency through a positive lens, not a negative one. 

Types of Spiritual Emergency 

There are two main types of spiritual emergency. They can be classified as:

1. Mystical Psychosis (hallucinations, mania, etc.)
2. The Dark Night of the Soul (depression)

Historically, we can see Mystical Psychosis play out in figures such as St. Teresa of Avila, Vincent Van Gogh, Nietzsche, and Carl Jung. The Dark Night of the Soul, on the other hand, can be seen in figures such as St. John of the Cross, Eckhart Tolle, and Mother Teresa.

The main difference between these two types of spiritual emergency seems to be the direction in which energy flows. 

With Mystical Psychosis, the energy seems to flow upward and beyond into higher realms of Spirit or Consciousness.  

On the other hand, with the Dark Night of the Soul, the energy seems to flow downwards and in – or into the realms of the Collective Unconscious and Soul. 

It is possible to have a little bit of Mystical Psychosis paired with the Dark Night of the Soul (and vice versa). It’s even possible to have both equally. But most people tend to experience only one type of spiritual emergency.

How to Cope With the Spiritual Emergency

There is a crack, a crack in everything that’s how the light gets in.

– Leonard Cohen

I write “cope” instead of “cure” because the spiritual emergency has a mind of its own. What we’re dealing with here is a force of nature, a Divine movement of energy that cannot be tampered with without adverse effects (such as those stuck in the mental health system carousel).

There is no six-steps-to-happiness process here. I wish there was. I would so love to provide that for you. But that would be disingenuous and disrespectful to the process you’re going through. Perhaps what is most important to take away from this article is that your suffering has a purpose and your experiences are spiritually valid. If there’s anything you remember from this article, I hope it’s this. 

While there is no formula for healing, as every journey is different, there are some practices you can try which have helped those on a similar path before you.

Please take these forms of advice very slowly and stop at any time if you feel worse:

1. Stop meditation, practice mindfulness instead

Many people who undergo spiritual emergencies simply cannot tolerate meditation. Why? Meditation can be very dissociating if you’re not grounded strongly in your body. (And those undergoing Mystical Psychosis or the Dark Night struggle to keep their grip on this plane of existence!) Meditation can also open up doorways within the mind and encourage the influx of unconscious material. For a person already being bombarded with images and visions from the deep mind, this can be profoundly destabilizing. 

During this difficult time, it’s better to practice mindfulness exercises. Mindfulness means consciously paying attention to the present moment. When we are mindful, we are fully engaged with our body and senses. Tuning into your sense of taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing can help to bring you back down to earth and your body.

Try to practice mindfulness a little bit every day. Wash the dishes mindfully and feel the cold water against your hands. Hang up the clothes mindfully, and listen to the birds chirping outside. Eat mindfully and notice the different textures and flavors filling your mouth. You get the picture!

2. Seek out earth energy

Try to bring the energy of the earth into your daily life. As you may already know, the earth’s energy is deeply grounding and nourishing. If you need help anchoring yourself into this realm, go outside and dig in the soil. Get your arms elbow-deep in the dirt. Plant some seedlings in your backyard. Take care of a pot plant indoors. Sit underneath a tree and feel the ground underneath your feet. If need be, bring a heavy stone to bed so you can literally become grounded. Ecotherapy is a good avenue to explore.

3. Temporarily stop your spiritual practice

To some, this may sound drastic, but the spiritual emergency isn’t something to be trifled with. It’s important to understand that some types of spiritual practice can intensify Mystical Psychosis and the Dark Night of the Soul. In the interest of your sanity, it might be best to put your practice aside for a while and focus on mundane tasks. If you absolutely cannot do without some form of spiritual nourishment, try earth-centered approaches to spirituality, like spending time in nature. Ultimately, whether you follow this advice or not is up to you and your situation. But definitely consider the possibility that your spiritual practice might be detrimental to your wellbeing right now.

4. Eat hearty food

During the spiritual emergency, it’s tempting to ignore what we eat (simply because we’re too preoccupied or have no energy). But please, try your utmost to eat at least one hearty meal a day. When I say hearty, I mean the food needs to be grounded. Focus on root vegetables like sweet potatoes and beetroots, and organic free-range meat. If you’re vegetarian or vegan, you might consider temporarily changing your diet to include meat – desperate times call for desperate measures!

5. Find the purpose in your suffering

Examine again the five potential reasons why spiritual emergencies happen (see the beginning of the article). Why do you think you’re experiencing a spiritual emergency? Listen to your heart and let the answer emerge. You’ll know you’ve found the truth when you feel full-body shivers, a sense of peace and clarity, or a sudden “aha!” lightbulb moment. If you can’t find any satisfactory explanations mentioned in this article you may like to pray to the Universe/God/whatever to help you find the meaning. This prayer doesn’t have to be religious, it can be spiritual or secular. Simply communicate your intention, and notice any signs that arise in the next week.

6. Exercise (even just for a few minutes)

Depending on your situation, you may like a full-body catharsis (like high interval training) or a gentle activity like walking. Pay attention to your needs. Exercise is vital for mental health and general physical wellbeing. It also connects you with your body and the surrounding world, which is important during the spiritual emergency.

7. Avoid stressful situations and reduce your responsibilities 

Stress exacerbates any form of spiritual emergency – this is pretty obvious. Furthermore, holding onto many responsibilities tends to produce stress. If you have many projects or people needing your energy, it might be best to drop the vast majority of them. The spiritual emergency demands your energy and attention, and getting lost in workaholism is a recipe for disaster. So try to simplify what you can and give yourself some breathing space.

8. Seek support

Yes, in the midst of psychosis it might be necessary to be medicated and hospitalized (low doses of medication are generally better than high doses during spiritual emergencies – but I am not a medical professional, so please listen to your own common sense). But generally, if your experience doesn’t require 24/7 observation, it’s best to seek out a therapist or spiritual counselor who is familiar with the notion of spiritual emergencies.

Above I recommended transpersonal, depth, and Jungian therapists (but please do your research and ask them if they know about spiritual emergencies). This is a great option, and you can visit the Spiritual Emergence Network to see if any are near you or just do a google search and include the name of your city. If worse comes to worst and you can’t find any within a reasonable distance, you can always try a religious chaplain, community mental health center, or online Skype sessions. You can also check out our Dark Night of the Soul Journal for gentle guidance.

Why am I not recommending the support of friends or family members? The reasons why is because usually those close to us have no understanding of the spiritual emergency and tend to be negatively conditioned by medical institutions. In other words, it’s much more likely that they’ll get spooked by your experience (as they’re comparing it to the “old” you) and actually invalidate the experience rather than validate it. This is not a hard and fast rule, and some friends or family members are mature and may have gone through similar experiences. So try to use your gut instinct when making a decision, and above all, put your wellbeing first.

Most importantly, do not let anyone try to convince you that what you’re going through is purely a product of mental illness or that your visions/insights are “irrelevant.” Denying the spiritual element of what you’re going through is monumentally short-sighted and detrimental to your wellbeing. You have the right to honor your experience and find meaning in it, as indeed it is meaningful.

Helpful Organizations

For further guidance, please check out the following resources:

• Spiritual Emergence Network
• Spiritual Crisis Network
• Spiritual Emergence Resources

These people and organizations are trained to help you get through the scary and overwhelming experience that is the spiritual emergency.

The Spiritual Emergency is a Sacred Process

When all is said and done, this spiritual emergency may be terrifyingly life-altering, but it is a sacred process of clearing out the old and welcoming in the new. 

While the medical world may pathologize you and the mundane world may reject you, you are not crazy. You are not alone. And your experiences do have profound spiritual meaning.

Take care of yourself, dear soul. You are doing the best that you can, and you are so courageous for walking this path. Thank you for your unfathomable bravery.

Dark night of the soul

On the broadcast of "Recognition of one's strength and beauty" I mentioned the dark night of the soul... Questions followed, where to get more detailed information.

Posting a chapter from Pepper Lewis on this subject:

Contents

• Gaia Speaks: Solutions for a Small Planet
• Dark night
• Spirit Removal
• Endless night
• Light restoration

About a year ago I experienced what I call a moment and a year of personal awakening. Many of the positive changes that have taken place in my life are directly related to this awakening. But now, exactly one year later, everything in my life brings me into confusion and confusion . I eat and sleep poorly and feel emotional and spiritual imbalance. Sometimes I have some kind of anxiety and there are temporary bouts of depression. At first glance, nothing seems to have changed, and I can't help but wonder why everything is worse now, and not better than before.

What happened? What has changed anyway? I was recently told about the so-called Dark Night of the Soul. Can you describe this state and say, is this not what is happening to me? If so, are there any remedies for this? Over the years, I have seen the impact Your words have on countless readers. And I pray that they help me too.

To begin with, it is important to remember and acknowledge that spiritual awakenings, like other worthwhile (and unexpected) events, are not one-time ecstatic experiences followed by a lifetime of insane fame. They are of the utmost importance, transcend all that is ordinary, and then unfold continually within and throughout lifetimes of experience.

But no matter how long such moments last, they represent changes in consciousness with the transition from one state to the next. In addition to being immeasurably important to your soul growth and forever imprinted in your cellular memory, they are also of the utmost importance as far as heaven is concerned. But they, of course, are not comparable with the grandeur of your soul's journey on the path of development, a journey that is commensurate with this Universe.

It is only when all these events are tied together that the beauty and brilliance of each individual pearl begins to accurately reflect the wholeness that you are. The expansion of your consciousness happens organically and continuously. It does not require all those moments when you experience a short-term ecstasy, and in fact surpasses them.

Believe it or not, and even if it is contrary to modern opinion, the ordinary affairs of the soul (and its personality) in its daily concerns are more than appropriate. God - unlike people - does not judge or even evaluate how many spiritual and how many worldly actions you perform. As funny as it may seem, but while you are looking for the meaning of your life, you are already living it. It cannot be otherwise, for All That Is always acts purposefully and is never inconsistent.

See also Twin flame. Origin and difference from soul mate

An article about the origin of the monad, soul and twin flames.

Whether one likes it or not, it is also necessary to recognize that the immediate meaning is that you first of all practice the skill of being a man, and only then the skill of being a mystic, sage or spiritualist. So much of your experience should reflect this law. Because your Being currently lives in the vehicle of denser light called the human body, this law takes precedence over others. At such moments, the principle of the Universal Law takes on special significance, because otherwise it could be quickly refuted.

This means that it is difficult not to be captivated by experiences that seem completely extraordinary. At such moments, the soul rejoices, and the person forgets about his problems and troubles. These joyful experiences are a reminder that there is always a great and a small reality that exist side by side and as one. The soul does not limit itself to these experiences, but they still guide it.

Notice that for the soul these experiences are not as important as for the personality. This reflects the conditionality of a three-dimensional personality by such opposites as good and bad, light and dark, etc. The human personality evaluates, judges and compares opposites according to its own experience, using them if necessary. as differences in a broader context.

The Dark Night

The Dark Night seems to be a completely human phenomenon, when a person who until now considered himself spiritual, and therefore not subject to the abstractions of everyday life, is forced to look at himself a second or third time.

Sometimes the soul (incarnated form of personality) even has to go back in the opposite direction to what it thought it was moving in order to restore the necessary qualities that it has missed or left behind. Your soul is interested in uniting the whole and will not settle for less. It is necessary to unravel everything. This disentanglement constitutes the Dark Night, which is not excluded even for the most correct and perfect life.

It seems that when this inevitable drama is played out, spiritually well-read and educated people, and those who have sat at the feet of a teacher for one or two lives, react especially strongly to this natural law, lashing out at others or injuring themselves. Although this path is difficult and not inspiring confidence, the Dark Night still has its value for the soul. As long as the path is wide, one can imitate the initiate, but when it eventually narrows, only the truly aspiring can endure everything to the end.

That which brought the ecstasy so desired by the personality is now revealed in a different way - the same gift, but it turns out differently. Spiritual awakenings are the result of the little self deciding to merge with the Higher Self. They make it possible to perceive the true reality, and not an illusion taken for reality.

Suppose a reflection comes out of a mirror for the first time and looks back to look at the reflection it called itself. Can you imagine what a deep experience this will be for the Higher Self, and how amazing it will be for the little self?

The small "I", unprepared for such an experience, sees not a great opportunity opening up, but only the deceitfulness and insignificance of its life, in which it so believed. Both the quality of the Dark Night and its duration are determined by the distance between the small and the Higher Self.

Now the "receptacle" of the soul, or the purified heart, must see its way through the semi-darkness of its human condition, until it can see in the darkness and eventually through it. In this state, the small “I” perceives any limitation as final and decisive, losing the ability for creative and original expression. However cruel this transition may seem, in the end the soul and personality will merge into one and once and for all clearly know where the right hand of God is and what moves it.

See also Doubts on the path of spiritual growth. How to overcome them

It happens that on the spiritual path you suddenly stop believing in the voice of the soul and ask yourself: Maybe there are no spiritual mentors, and the voice of the Higher Self is a figment of the imagination? Find out where these doubts come from and how to eliminate them.

Removal of the spirit

In this New Era, when coming like an avatar of insight and the ability to communicate with the Spirit become almost an everyday occurrence, the Dark Night often manifests itself in the disappearance of these habitual phenomena.

The Senior Teachers of the Spirit as objective ideas of the developed consciousness become the central factors of help. When, obeying the high laws of the Spirit, they leave, they leave a fragrant trace, which is very quickly replaced by a wall of impenetrable darkness. Can anything replace such closeness and mutual love of the Spirit and for the Spirit? And very quickly the thought arises that it is so easy to reject only that which is not worthy of love. And the torment begins.

People with a delicate disposition and people with good intuitive organization endure this spiritual loss very hard; the absence brings great bitterness, because the presence was very pleasant. Removal is often both personal and impersonal. If, for example, the Dark Night falls for the channel [Pepper Lewis], whose pen is now transmitting the words of Gaia, then, more than likely, her pen will also be silenced.

Many more people fall into the despair described here than can be imagined, clinging to the ego with deplorable results and trying to squeeze conditioned and forced words out of it. When the spiritual connection almost ceases, the small "I" remains to, as it were, resurrect itself from the dead. In desperation, it returns to its simplicity and innocence, sometimes even crying like a child, in a plea not to leave it anymore.

The little "I" must start as if anew, for even those who think they have nothing have everything from all eternity, and this is what they will have to be convinced of again. Gods and teachers who flatter the little self or soul are not divine enough, so such experiences of deprivation and sorrow are often followed by a more correct understanding of divinity.

Those who consider themselves the most innocent and pure in their thoughts and deeds endure the Night differently. These self-imposed exiles in endless torment are forced to see a constant succession of not the most worthy people who are rewarded for every little thing. To them, who, in their own opinion, deserve God's love and happiness more than others, it seems as if they are in last place - forgotten, bypassed and abandoned.

Speechless from such a turn of affairs and unable to control themselves, they begin to think badly and talk about generosity towards others and their well-being. Depressed by their own bad luck, they see bad omens almost every day and run into trouble. It seems that the more good deeds they do, the more they plunge into darkness, from which they see no way out.

At this stage, many begin to believe that God really favors darkness and those who think and care about themselves first. When a bad situation turns into an even worse one, they are faced with the choice of whether to live and enjoy life like everyone else, or withdraw from society and live alone in a world that no longer accepts them.

During the Dark Night, the soul purifies itself, recognizing its own shortcomings.

Together with her personality, she reviews all her real and imaginary sins. Each particle and atom is magnified many times over so as not to miss any detail. With such an increase, the small "I" cannot but see its insignificance and artificiality.

As the distance between the small "I" and the soul increases, so does the distance between Light and Darkness, Turning the blessings of life into nothing more than abstractions and distractions that fall like a heavy burden on the shoulders, which suddenly become fragile and unreliable.

See also Love and Fear. How the Power of Love Displaces Fear in New Energies

In this article we will explain the difference between the state of fear and the state of love, why the instinct of self-preservation has become obsolete and what is coming to replace it.

Endless night

It is human nature to regret what was inevitable and look back on one's mistakes, instead of rushing into the unknown and considering good will to be eternal and evil to be transient. There is, however, a great deal of truth in the fact that everything created is temporary and transitory. This means that your Essence, which is the presence of your soul, is eternal. The temporal is an aspect of the permanent, but the permanent is not an aspect of the eternal. It is this truth (constituting the Universal Law) that the small "I" (personality) and the Higher "I" (Soul) forget when immersed in the Dark Night.

Permanence is that which lasts forever or very long. It characterizes everything that never changes or should not undergo significant changes. Constancy is inherent in everything physical. It can be attributed to Stonehenge and to your physical body. It is believed that Stonehenge has been standing for many thousands of years, and one can imagine that even more. It seems almost an eternal structure, but since it was created for a specific purpose, someday, when its purpose loses its relevance, it will cease to exist.

The same applies to your physical body. It seems strong and durable because its existence makes sense. But someday, when it has a higher purpose than today, you will want to leave it or recreate it in a different form. In the meantime, by virtue of its permanence and purpose, it belongs to you.

Eternity is not a physical quality. It is infinite and therefore unaffected by the passage of time. Your soul is made of this eternal material, and therefore it is destined to find its own divinity. One of the paths your soul follows in its destined journey is through the experience of incarnations in human form. The permanent and the eternal are connected in a completely unique relationship. They obey the same laws, but one is their physical manifestation, the other is its opposite. The Lesser Self and the Higher Self follow the same laws, and although they complement each other, people are often most confused by the contrast between them.

This obscure contrast contributes to the division that is most often seen during the Dark Night. Conscious of its eternity, the soul rejoices in the Dark Night as an opportunity to reconsider what it is most unsure of. She tries to prolong her journey and looks at the Dark Night only as the hour before dawn. And the personal "I", thinking that he has only one life, is afraid of hesitation and even delays.

The Personality sees in the Dark Night the result of an unpassed exam, an exam in which it was tested and considered unworthy. She expects only a well-deserved punishment for her sins, but these are just representations of human nature.

Restoration of light

Dark Night lasts exactly as long as the sins are revealed.

If in a spiritual awakening a person can see no more than a series of eternal moments, then the Dark Night will last no longer than the night itself, you understand? Spiritual awakening is a cause for rejoicing, but it is not a reward that is given only for a day (or a year) and taken away the next day or year. But even so, there is nothing wrong with giving yourself a sumptuous feast once and contenting yourself with simpler food the next day. Day turns into night as inevitably as night turns into day, and this applies to everything that happens to you in the best possible way.

Confusion, confusion and anxiety predominate, when separation is most strongly felt. If you are separated from the breath, you greedily catch the air as you inhale and exhale heavily. If you do not think about your physical condition, then your body's nutritional needs will not be met, and if you are afraid that you will not have the courage to persevere and overcome obstacles, your body will not rest and experience the peace that brings dream.

Emotional stability is the result of confidence in the next moment and the next event, while depression arises as a result of the small self's insistent but impossible claim to control. Without interaction and awareness of both hemispheres of the brain, it is impossible to achieve balance.

Spiritual balance will be restored when strict beliefs are replaced by recognition of new opportunities.
The Dark Night of the Soul is a phenomenon associated with spiritual awakening and should not be feared. The Dark Night does not necessarily follow or precede spiritual awakening, for both are merely aspects of soul expansion. Nevertheless, beware of those who promise you a path that leads away from your own center and leads to someone else's, for such a path very often leads to various sufferings and pains.

Be patient when going through this and surround yourself with like-minded people.

Move carefully and slowly, as your path may not be clear during this cycle.

Pity yourself a little if you can't help it, but don't wallow in self-pity.

Train yourself to see in dim light so that you can help others to do the same if you are asked to.

If what is happening to you today brings you back to similar moments that seem to crawl straight out of your past, acknowledge them as such. Look at them directly and honestly. The sun (son) returns at the appointed hour, and the light will cast its shadow soon enough. When bogged down in a quagmire, do not make sudden movements. Resign to your fate until you have enough buoyancy to make it to shore. You can get dirty, but you won't be defeated.

Your only sin is forgetting the laws that govern nature in the third dimension. These laws also apply to human nature. The remedy is to remember and forgive where necessary. The light is never absent, but is often identified by the shadow.

Later addition from Gaia:

Benevolent readers, both in body and spirit, these words are for you and the child within you who still believes in separation, which is nothing but fear, but yet real, at least in the sense that it is really felt. It comes from yesterdays, but it will settle in your today and try to follow you into your tomorrows.

Remember that when you develop a new path, sometimes it is slow. A new, slower path is better than the well-trodden old one, where there are no new views and horizons. If your biggest concern is not knowing which direction to go, start with the Valley of Peace.

In search of the shortest path to Shambhala, many missed this oasis in order to return later on in their own footsteps, when they most of all wanted to be in its healing meadows. Maybe I will come to you there, and we will sit there together, because this is my home too.

Dark night of the soul | Master Margashov Vyacheslav

Ω

The shadow of death, suffering and torments of hell is felt especially sharply, and it comes from the feeling that you are abandoned by God… and a terrible foreboding arises in the soul that it will always be like this… The soul sees itself in the very center of the most diverse forms of evil, in the midst of pitiful imperfection, devastated, thirsting for understanding and thrown into darkness.

San Juan de la Cruz, Dark Night of the Soul

…

The following pages will describe some of the most common critical and embarrassing types of experiences that come to the surface from the complex and confusing inner world of the individual during the transformation process and which we know both from our own experience and from the reports of other people. . We hope that we will not discourage the reader by starting now to deal with these difficult experiences. The dark night of the soul is just one aspect of the spiritual journey, and there are many more that are much more enjoyable.

…

The purpose of our study of this topic is, firstly, to express the unusual sequence of states during the process of transformation. Although there are many exceptions, most people who experience a spiritual crisis still have to dive into and through dark areas before they reach a state of freedom, light and peace. For those who undertake this path, the positive experiences often seem more meaningful and intense afterwards, in contrast to the difficult experiences they had to deal with earlier. Just as the sunrise is perceived as particularly bright and hopeful after a long winter night, so joy seems especially strong after pain.

With this in mind, one might ask the following question: what are those dark regions through which a person may have to pass? What do they look like? And what kind of conflicts can arise there?
For some people who are in a spiritual crisis, both in its dramatic and milder forms, the task of getting through one more day, the task of maintaining the ability to act in the usual way, can be a serious challenge. Normal, seemingly simple activities that are part of everyday life can suddenly become difficult or depressing. Often, individuals in crisis are filled with inner experiences that are so saturated with emotions, power and energy that it is difficult to separate the vivid and vivid images of the inner world from the events of external reality. In such situations, it is often difficult to maintain concentration, and this can cause great difficulty for people going through a crisis. Panic can also be caused by rapid, frequent changes in states of consciousness. Unable to function in their usual way, people in this situation feel powerless, ineffective, and guilty.

One woman described her problems as follows:

“I could see and understand that there were chores to be done around the house, but I had the feeling that there was some kind of wall between me and these chores that I used to do without any effort. I remembered that I needed to go out to do some gardening work and knew that this activity could be useful. However, I got the feeling that if I went that far, I might explode. All those artistic and creative projects that made me so happy before were too hard to focus on now. And even playing with my children seemed too difficult for me. The only thing I could do during this time was to somehow take care of myself.”

Among the most difficult and disturbing conditions that a person experiencing a spiritual crisis usually has to face are feelings of fear, a sense of his own madness and preoccupation with death. Although these states are often inevitable, necessary, and central parts of the healing process, they can become frightening and overwhelming, especially when there is no support from others.

A wide variety of repressed emotions and memories break out from the opening gates of the unconscious. When a person is faced with specific memories or experiences from personal or transpersonal, transpersonal, areas, he may have experiences associated with fear, loneliness, insanity and death. The person may recall memories of severe illnesses, life-threatening events, or other disturbing events from infancy and childhood. Biological birth, with all its complex, chaotic and dynamic manifestations, can also be re-experienced.

Many memories contain an element of fear. People whose parents were addicted to alcohol may experience the horror that their drunken mother experienced when she was abused. In others, the fear that a person once experienced when falling from a tree or when he had whooping cough as a child can come to life.

The individual may suddenly feel a childish feeling of loneliness which has nothing to do with his present situation. These irrational feelings may be related to childhood experiences such as abandonment by parents or lack of connection with mother at the time of birth. Feelings like this can come from being isolated from peers at school or from the pain of divorce. Often, when the memory of life-threatening events arises, some individuals may experience feelings of insanity. They may suddenly recall a sequence of events from their personal history, such as a near-fatal car accident or an incident while swimming where there was a threat of drowning, or some extreme physical or sexual abuse. When people recall such incidents, their feelings are so strong that they begin to believe that the connection with reality is lost.

Such situations can also lead a person to experience death. In addition, experiences related to death may be related to the circumstances of birth. A person always experiences some form of essential contact with death when the memories relating to his birth are revived in him with the accompanying feeling of suffocation and threat to life. If during the prenatal existence the individual was threatened with abortion or miscarriage, then he or she may experience a very convincing crisis of the survival of the fetus, which is again vividly remembered after a long time.

The person may also experience fear, loneliness, insanity, or death during transpersonal states that arise from the collective unconscious or even from universal realms.

Transpersonal areas contain both light and dark elements; fear can cause both those and others, "positive" and "negative". Someone may fight a monstrous mythological demon or relive a battle that took place in another era - feelings of anxiety and fear in such situations are inevitable. The fact that a feeling of fear sometimes arises when an individual moves into the realm of light and beauty may be puzzling. In the next chapter, we will discuss the challenge of "positive" realities.

The individual may experience a feeling of loneliness during realistic identification with a soldier separated from his beloved during the war, or with an African mother who is losing her child to starvation. One woman during our seminars experienced a real madness when, during a session of deep empirical work, she felt insane in a medieval asylum for the insane. An hour later, when her experience ended, she returned to her usual rational state.

The encounter with death on the transpersonal level can take many forms. Experiences reminiscent of past life memories can vividly revive the feelings of a murdered soldier, a slave, a martyr, or a mother experiencing the loss of children during the war. A person can experience a collision with death in the mythological worlds sometimes through his identification with the figure of Christ crucified on the cross or with Osiris dismembered into parts.

The individual can identify with the universal human experience of dying, becoming every woman who dies in childbirth and every man who has been killed in battle throughout human history. Some may experience their identification with the most archetypal figure of Death, feeling the enormity of this universal power. The following vivid example comes from the recollection of a woman whose spiritual crisis involved many realistic death experiences:

“I saw everything around me swirling in a whirlwind of death: tombstones, crosses, laughing skulls and crossbones. I saw a lot of bloody battles, concentration camps, hospital wards - there were scenes of death everywhere. It seemed to me that at the same time I was watching and taking part in all the deaths at the same time. Then my experiences suddenly changed and I felt as if I, whoever I was, was responsible for it all; I became Death itself in its traditional gloomy image with a scythe, reaping human lives; an apocalyptic rider on a pale horse - and all this was myself, calling all people to leave life.

It is easy to make the mistake of associating the emotions and sensations caused by the sudden manifestation of repressed memories with the life situation that the person has at the moment. For example, someone who re-experienced the threat of death that hung over him at the time of his birth may develop a deep preoccupation with the problem of death or an unusually strong reaction to films or television shows showing scenes of death. He may feel constantly threatened by potential danger in the world around him and may often worry about physical safety. Without realizing it, he may panic in confined spaces, be frightened in an elevator or during a crush on the subway.

Some may develop thanatophobia - an excessive fear of death, against which the person becomes obsessed with the belief that he is in danger of a heart attack. When the experience of birth is fully realized with all its wide range of emotions and physical sensations, the realization comes to a person that this is the source of his fears, and these fears dissipate.

——————————

FACE TO FACE WITH FEAR

Fear is a natural part of the diverse mosaic of changing states of consciousness.

Some form of fear usually accompanies a spiritual crisis, both in a mild form, associated with upcoming participation in everyday events, and in the form of a huge, overwhelming horror that seems to be unrelated to any real aspects of the person's life. Sometimes anxiety and anxiety can also be associated with the situation in which a person is: when not only many of his beliefs are destroyed, but the person himself in such a situation becomes extremely emotional. There is a general weakness in the body, new physical stresses and disturbing pains appear. Most of the fears seem completely inexplicable and unreasonable, although, of course, in essence, these fears cannot cause any real harm to the person who experiences them. Sometimes the individual involved in the crisis deals with the fears relatively easily, but there are times when the feeling of fear seems to have expanded so much that it turns into a completely uncontrollable panic.

Most people experience many forms of fear in their lives, from the most gross and obvious, such as fear of physical injury or death, to more subtle manifestations, such as the anxiety experienced when asking a stranger for something person. Despite their fears, most people are able to function reasonably well in daily life without being overwhelmed by those fears. During many spiritual crises, everyday fears intensify and escalate, often becoming unmanageable. They may take the form of spontaneous general anxiety, or they may crystallize into separate more common types of fear.

FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN.

To a certain extent, it is common to many people. When life begins to take us in an unfamiliar direction, we often respond by becoming preoccupied and resisting.

Some people rush into the unknown relatively fearlessly, while showing admirable courage. But many others, when they have to move towards unexplored areas, do it against their will or, at best, very carefully.

For those who are in a spiritual crisis, the fear of the unknown can increase to enormous proportions. Their inner states often change so quickly that they become filled with fear from not knowing which state will be next. Such people are constantly immersed in immeasurable inner spaces, in new forms of awareness, in undiscovered possibilities. Thus, a completely materialistic woman may experience spontaneous out-of-body states and may imagine that she is more than just the physical body with which she usually identifies herself. Or a person may suddenly experience a series of emotional and physical states that appear to come from some other place and time. This experience can lead a person to the idea of ​​reincarnation - an idea that was previously completely alien to him.

Sudden events of this type can be quite frightening for people who are not prepared for them. They may develop a sense of uncertainty about where they are going and how they should react to everything that happens; such rapid and dramatic changes can cause fear that they are losing control of their lives. These changes may be too long for the old, familiar and safe way of being, that calmer and less demanding existence, even if not quite happy, that they had before.

FEAR OF LOSSING CONTROL.

A person who has spent many years working hard for the well-being of a successful family life can imagine his future as something quite clear and feel significant in the daily burdens that fill his existence. When his wife suddenly develops a terminal illness, his life suddenly takes a completely different direction from the one he had planned. His dreams are shattered, and the emotional stress caused by this event can be the beginning of a transformational process. With difficulty, painfully, this person realizes that he has no power over the forces of life and death and that he is affected by something that is beyond his control.

Many people spend years feeling that their familiar world is well organized and that they have complete control over their lives. When they discover that they are by no means in complete control of the trajectory of their being, they may experience a sense of extreme freedom. But it happens that people are afraid of this, especially if they completely identify themselves with their lifestyle full of constant stress. They will ask themselves: “If I am not in control of my life, then who is? And is he, she, or it—that which rules my life—quite trustworthy? Can I give myself to some unknown power and know that this power will take care of me?

Faced with the fear of losing control, the mind and ego become very sophisticated in their efforts to cling to something; people in these situations can create complex systems of rebuttal by convincing themselves that the way they are living is absolutely wonderful and that there is no need for any change, or that the changes they feel are just illusory. . These people may try to intellectually interpret the states of mind they experience, creating sophisticated theories to explain them. Or they may simply be trying to avoid these states altogether. Sometimes the feeling of anxiety itself becomes a defense: when a person clings to his feeling of fear, this can quite successfully prevent him from growing too fast.

There is another form of loss of control, far less gradual and more dramatic. Being in a spiritual crisis, a person may feel overwhelmed by powerful episodes of experiences during which he completely loses control over his behavior. In such situations, the individual may explode with anger, burst into tears, tremble violently, or scream in a way that has never been done before. This unhindered release of emotions can be extremely liberating, but before it occurs, the person may experience extreme fear and resistance to the power of their feelings. After such an explosion, the individual feels frightened and ashamed that he allowed his expression to manifest with such force.

OTHER TYPES OF FEAR.

In some forms of spiritual crises, physical sensations or reactions are sometimes interpreted as fear. People can feel strange bursts of energy in themselves, sometimes of extreme strength. They feel pulsating electrical charges within them, an uncontrollable trembling in their body, or the presence of some unknown force flowing through their nervous system. Their pulse quickens and their body temperature rises.

What happens in this case? Such manifestations often become a natural physiological accompaniment of abrupt changes in consciousness; these sensations may also be specific characteristics of some form of spiritual crisis, such as the awakening of the Kundalini.

People who are unprepared for or unfamiliar with such phenomena can be very frightened when such manifestations become part of their daily lives. Since they have certain criteria for the normality of bodily sensations, they usually experience anxiety during attacks of such strange new sensations and can easily mistake these sensations for manifestations of fear itself.

---

Learn more

• 
  Reasons for loving your boyfriend
• 
  Social interaction with autism
• 
  How lies affect relationships
• 
  Anti social kids
• 
  Cpt code for crisis intervention
• 
  Manic behavior icd 10
• 
  Human characteristics examples
• 
  Newest medicine for depression
• 
  Paranoid ideation symptoms
• 
  Low serotonin in the brain
• 
  Questions to ask during conversation